Placido Hilukilwa
WITCHDOCTORS and Neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic preachers who name or identify alleged witches are in serious trouble.
The Namibian police have dusted off the Witchcraft Suppression Proclamation 27 of 1933 and have launched a campaign to root out those suspected of creating discord and disharmony in society.
According to Proclamation 27 of 1933, it is a punishable offense to impute to another (person) the use of “non-natural means” in causing disease or injury to any person or property. It is also a crime to name or indicate another (person) as a wizard or witch.
But that is exactly what a number of Neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic preachers and witchdoctors are doing.
The task to root them out was recently entrusted to Nampol’s Chief Inspector Christine van Dunem Da Fonsech who hit the ground running, starting with the Ohangwena Region where malpractices by religious leaders and purported traditional healers are endemic.
She targeted places suspected to be hotspots of abuse.
“We receive hundreds of complaints every day about malpractices in churches and manipulation by people pretending to be traditional healers. The Inspector-General decided that we address the situation. Our people are suffering. They are being abused,” she said, adding that a chaotic situation is being created and the future of many being ruined.
According to her, the picture is gloomy, mostly in the rural villages and informal settlements:
– Neighbors are not on speaking terms;
– Children are made to hate their parents;
– Learners are missing classes and have become disobedient to both parents and teachers;
– Married women spend nights at churches and are then dropped at home by their male pastors during the early morning hours, leaving their husbands somehow suspicious.
Da Fonsech said that even teachers and other civil servants who attend the Neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic churches or consult fake traditional healers are not spared.
“They are told that this one is not progressing because of spiritual interference by that one. This one is of ill health because he or she was bewitched by that one. Some of these churches are dividing, instead of uniting, communities and families,” she said.
Prominent among the places visited by Da Fonsech were the main branch of the True Gospel of Salvation Ministry International at Oshikango and the consulting room of a purported transitional healer at Eenhana who was caught red-handed in an undercover operation.
Da Fonsech says the operation is not necessarily punitive but rather educative and corrective.
“Our mission is essentially community problem-solving and orientation,” she said.
She said that during the operation they discovered churches that are not registered, others with no proper records, and still others that used false pretences to acquire land.
A war of words
A war of words erupted after the Oshikango parish was closed because of practices suspected to be contrary to a church’s mission.
Besides being a place of worship, it was allegedly transformed into a place of internment for the infirm, some of whom were mental health patients.
But the church’s founder, Erickson Commander Mwaetako, is disputing the version of the police, saying that he did nothing wrong.
The 42-year-old preacher revealed that he was a prisoner in Windhoek’s Central Prison in 2008 when he was “born again” and after his release, he established his church at Oshikango in 2012.
It was properly registered with the then Ministry of Trade and Industry and has since established several branches.
It is not clear how long the police operation will last.
Christians are expressing divergent views on the police operation.
While many support the police action, saying it was long overdue, others see it as victimization of new churches perhaps concocted in collaboration with older churches that are losing members.
